Reviews

Virtua Fighter 4

Central to this fighting engine are attacks at three levels; high, mid, and low. Put together a stream of these attacks, and your opponent must learn how to block or counter them. With varying attack times, and each fighter's arsenal of attacks sometimes numbering over 100, learning how to react to each separate fighter and their preferred strategies leads to a highly complex dance of attacks, prediction and extreme skill. This is Virtua Fighter 4 at its deepest -- it becomes a game no other rival piece of software can top in terms of a learning curve that trails on and on as far as you want to go. Add to this the power move (a sometimes unblockable attack), a faster "get up" time after characters are smashed to the floor, less "floating" after juggling combos, and the choice of fighting in arenas with walls, breakable walls, or without walls (which lead to ring-outs), and you have the most well-rounded fighting game of all time.

But it's not just the Arcade and Versus modes you'll be attacking with relish. No, the real fun of Virtua Fighter 4 comes from the indispensable Training mode, which has more Options than Eve of Extinction has levels. Here you can learn all your character's moves, fight against particular enemies, learn expert techniques, slow the action down to aid timing, and even create your own "Virtual" fighter that you can teach how to fight and then unleash against others. During battles, you award them with encouragement when they do well, and scold them when they fail. Imagine Shun Di as a Tamagotchi -- bizarre, but it just feels so right!

But the craziness doesn't end there. Oh no. As well as being able to record and replay any of your fights, there's the utterly absorbing Kumite Mode. This enables you to create your own fighter (we chose Shun Di, obviously), name him or her (we christened him "Tung Fu Ru" after the classic Fatal Fury character), and enter them in a series of survival matches. During this time, the number of fights, wins, losses, experience points, and your rank are recorded and stored on the memory card. You continue to fight until you reach a "Ranking Match." Win this, and you advance up ten ranks of "Kyu", then ten ranks of "Dan", and finally reach "God" like status. With each fight, you'll encounter another "tweaked" computer contestant. Some of these are foolish beginners, but some have their fighting techniques taken from human VF champions. Oh, and did we mention that the CPU fighters learn your techniques? So, no repeating the same move over and over, Tekken fans....

But the coolest part, and certainly the best fun we've had in a fighting game since we went on a Katar collecting spree with Voldo, are the items you receive throughout the Kumite fight. Head up through the ranks with Lion, and you'll be able to dress him up (both 1P and 2P costumes) in black, add a helmet, and perhaps a nose-ring. Shun has a variety of hats. Aoi sports various flowing costumes and wimples. Good grief, there's even small strange frogs and other "shame" items if you lose more than ten fights in a row. After customizing your character, you can save him to your memory card (and yes, those total fights are still recorded), bring him around to your friend's house, and challenge your custom fighter to a Versus battle with your mate's modified martial arts master.